1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a test apparatus and a recording medium.
2. Related Art
A known conventional test apparatus uses a plurality of test modules to test a device under test such as a semiconductor circuit, as in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-317256. These test modules are exchangeable in an input/output interface. The test apparatus includes a plurality of slots for holding test modules that can be exchanged with other test modules. With this configuration, the test apparatus tests the device under test using a variety of test modules.
The test apparatus has a diagnostic function to determine whether the test modules are operating correctly. For example, the test apparatus may perform a test in which the output signal of each test module is measured after being looped back and input to the test module that output the signal, or a test in which this looped back signal is input to a different test module.
In the test apparatus that holds each test module to be exchangeable, the test module inserted into each slot is not constant. Each type of test module may perform a different diagnostic process. Therefore, the test apparatus references a configuration file indicating the type of test module inserted into each slot, and performs diagnostic processes corresponding respectively to the types of test modules.
FIG. 7 shows an exemplary diagnostic operation performed by a plurality of test modules. The test apparatus of FIG. 7 diagnoses test modules A to F. The CPU of the test apparatus determines the type of diagnosis to be performed for each test module based on the configuration file. The CPU sets diagnostic data corresponding to the determined diagnostic content in the test module A (process 102).
After setting the diagnostic data for the test module A, the CPU of the test apparatus supplies the test module A with a command too perform a self-diagnosis (process 104). After the test module A performs the self-diagnosis, the CPU of the test apparatus analyzes the self-diagnosis result (process 106). By performing the processes 102 to 106 sequentially for each of the test modules, the CPU causes all of the test modules to perform the self-diagnosis.
In the above self-diagnosis processes, however, the test modules perform the self-diagnoses in sequence, and so a long time is needed for all of the test modules to finish the self diagnosis processes. This is particularly problematic when a large number of test modules are provided to the test apparatus.